


It Calls Me On And On

by killingmonsterswritingthings



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Gen, happy birthday sammy?, this is just really self-indulgent sort of self insert i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:52:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killingmonsterswritingthings/pseuds/killingmonsterswritingthings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do we have breakfast?” Sam asked, pulling her shirt over her head.</p>
<p>“There’s probably still cereal left but I don’t know about milk,” I said, wandering into our small kitchen area. “But we could just try to get the replicator to work.”</p>
<p>“We should’ve gotten that thing fixed weeks ago,” she grumbled.</p>
<p>“Well why don’t you get Z over here, she would probably know how to do it.”</p>
<p>“I forgot,” she said, following me into the kitchen, now fully dressed. “And so did you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Calls Me On And On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sammylostshoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sammylostshoe/gifts).



I woke up to the sound of my alarm going off and was just about to roll over and tell the goddamn thing to let me sleep another few minutes when I remembered which day it was. “I’m up, I’m up. Jesus. Deactivate,” I grumbled. Voice-controlled technology really took the fun out of punching the snooze button.

Despite having deactivated the alarm I stayed in my bed for another minute with the covers kicked off, staring at the ceiling. Normally now would be the time where I was risking falling asleep again but today I was far too aware of the date for that. I finally got up and glanced over at my roommate’s bed.  Her alarm would probably go off half an hour after mine since she was a lot better at getting ready fast in the morning.

But when I stepped out of the bathroom over thirty minutes later she still didn’t show any signs of waking up and I was sure her alarm had been activated at least two times.

“Sam, get up,” I said, sat down on my bed and started to braid my hair loosely. She only responded with an incoherent mumble and turned away from me. I rolled my eyes and finished the braid, then I grabbed my pillow and chucked it at her head. “Wake up! Today’s the day!”

“Ugh, no…”

“What do you mean “No”? This is what we’ve been working for for four years, you don’t get to say “No” to today!”

“I get to say no if I want to sleep another hour,” she said.

“Oh my god, just get up,” I whined. “We _graduate_ today. You can’t miss the ceremony.”

“I won’t miss it, I’ll just be a bit late,” she mumbled but finally cracked an eye open to look at me.

I grabbed the pillow again and started hitting her with it repeatedly. “Get up! Come on! I’m not going there on my own, you know I’m terrified of the entire thing. Sam, it’s graduation. You can take a nap right after you get your diploma and your assignment orders.”

“Stop hitting me! Fine! See, I’m getting up,” she said, shielding her head with her arms and kicking the blanket off with her legs. I stopped my attack and threw the pillow back onto my bad, glad that she knew where the line for the joke was. “For being terrified you seem really excited,” Sam said flatly and slowly sat up, stretching.

“I’m excited but I’m also terrified. It’s natural,” I said, shrugging.

“Your social anxiety isn’t.”

I glared at her. That was a low blow. “Fuck you. You can’t psychoanalyze me if you don’t have a degree.”

“I can. Also I would still get my degree if I didn’t show up at the ceremony,” she grinned and then had to yawn.

“That’s not the point!” I almost shouted.

“Relax. I’m getting up, see?” She stood up and walked towards her closet. “As if I would miss graduation, even if I only got three hours of sleep.”

“Good. Because otherwise I would’ve thrown your stupid book out of the window.”

She turned and raised an eyebrow me before going back to rifling through a pile of clothes. “You wouldn’t.”

I grinned triumphantly. “You know I would… under extreme circumstances.”

While we were having this exchange in our usual back-and-forth banter she knew I could get angry enough to actually do that. Throwing ‘the book’ out of the window had been a threat I had applied to her at least a dozen times now after actually doing it once. Ever since then she had been guarding it with her life but I hadn’t been forced to actually follow up on my words so it had just become a running gag between us. The book in question was a signed copy of Leonard McCoy’s _Five Years On The Enterprise_. I was still amazed that physical copies of that book even existed, but hey, they were only rare, not entirely extinct. Books in general were an endangered species but hanging on tight. I personally like the feeling of holding one in my hands but nothing could beat the practicality of PADDs.

“Do we have breakfast?” Sam asked, pulling her shirt over her head.

“There’s probably still cereal left but I don’t know about milk,” I said, wandering into our small kitchen area. “But we could just try to get the replicator to work.”

“We should’ve gotten that thing fixed weeks ago,” she grumbled.

“Well why don’t you get Z over here, she would probably know how to do it.”

“I forgot,” she said, following me into the kitchen, now fully dressed. “And so did you.”

“Yeah, well, there were exams to pass. And we don’t need the replicator because both of us prefer real food.”

“Not a lot of that in space,” she argued, elbowing me so I would let her open the fridge. “I think we made a mistake in our career choice.”

“Well, at least there will be clean bowls,” I shot back, rinsing out the ones we had eaten from yesterday. “Also, space. Space, Sammy!”

She made a pleased noise and pulled her hand out of the fridge, lactose-free milk container in her hand. “Yeah, space, I know,” she grinned.

I held one of the still dripping bowls out to her, grabbing the cereal with the other hand. “Don’t act like you don’t think it’s a big deal. This is what we’ve been dreaming of since we were like… three years old. Is there still orange juice?”

“Space!” She waved the milk in front of my face before putting it down on the table and turning back to the fridge. “Yeah, you’re lucky.”

We managed to get seated at our small table and divide the leftover cereal between us. She poured milk over hers and I used the orange juice on mine. I’d never been a fan of dairy.

“No but really,” I said, shoving a spoonful of fruity cereal into my mouth just to proceed to talk around it. “I an’t ait o ow ich shi we onna me on.”

She rolled her eyes. “Manners. You don’t have them.”

I shrugged and swallowed. “Only with you.”

“True,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Okay, I hate to bring this up but you know that we might be assigned to different ships, right?”

“Ugh,” I made, frowning into my bowl. “You really didn’t have to remind me.” Suddenly I wasn’t hungry anymore.

She shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, I just didn’t want you to go in with unrealistic expectations.”

“You know I played through a hundred different outcomes of today in my head,” I said, watching as soggy cereal clumps fell from my spoon back into the bowl.

“Hey. Chin up.” She kicked my shin under the table and I let the spoon fall onto the table, glaring at her. “Even if we don’t get to be on the same ship, you’re bound to know someone because wherever you end up you won’t be the only new recruit either way. And we rookies stick together. Now finish your cereal.”

With a sigh I picked up my spoon and forced myself to finish the cereal because I definitely couldn’t bear going through our fucking _graduation ceremony_ on an empty stomach. The rest of our breakfast passed in silence and when we were finished I even did the dishes to try and ease the bad feeling in my gut. It didn’t work.

“Now you’re the one wasting time!” Sam yelled from the bathroom. “Those could’ve waited until after. Come on, get ready or we’ll be late!” She grabbed my uniform jacket on the way back and put it around my shoulders. “It’ll be fine. I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

“Well I don’t,” I mumbled but slipped my arms through the sleeves. My excitement was gone but there was no way to avoid graduating.

 

We left our dorm room and walked across campus towards the assembly hall, together with approximately a million other cadets. Okay, I might be exaggerating.

“Sorry for killing your good mood,” Sam said when we were halfway there.

I just shrugged. “It would’ve happened anyway. The fear would’ve set in right about now.” She shot me a concerned look but I just took a deep breath and jabbed a finger at her. “Don’t go all doctor on me now, I took my meds this morning, it’ll be fine. I’m still allowed to be scared.”

“Okay,” she said and we kept walking towards the doors looming ahead of us. Then Sammy suddenly made a little jump. “There’s Z!” I stood on my tiptoes to be able to look over the heads of the other people around us and saw a familiar figure walking in our general direction.

“Hey Z!” Sam yelled and succeeded in getting her attention – and the attention of every other person in a fifty meter radius. I tried to look like I was just a random person that had no affiliation with the woman next to me at all. Z on the other hand just waved and made a beeline towards us.

She greeted us with hugs and a nervous flick of her hair. “This is insane,” she said. “Feels like yesterday since we joined and now we’re done.”

I fiddled with the hem of my jacket. “They could still fail us.”

Sam rolled her eyes and nudged my side. “Yeah, right. Because they’re not obligated to tell us about failed exams at least 24 hours before the graduation ceremony. That rule is there for a reason.”

“First time I ever hear you praising the rules,” I said, grateful for the easy made joke.

She raised her hands defensively. “Okay, whatever, anyone know where Izzy is?”

We looked at Z and she shrugged. “Hopefully already inside, since she had already left when I got out of the bathroom but who knows.”

“Please don’t let her be late,” Sam said to no one in particular and I chuckled.

“Well she has another fifteen minutes,” I said.

“Yeah, let’s just go graduate,” Z added and we walked through the doors to, possibly our future or our doom. I wasn’t quite sure.

 

Izzy ended up showing up exactly twelve seconds before the ceremony started and Sammy waved frantically at her to get her to notice the empty seat next to her. I was just happy we didn’t have to sit in any particular order because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to claw at Sammy’s arm.

“Relax,” Z and Sam told me at the same time while Izzy let herself dramatically fall onto the chair.

“There was a cat,” she explained. “I had to help it. I think someone-”

“You can tell us all about it later,” Sam interrupted her. “We gotta listen to the speeches right now, okay?”

I only half-listened to the speeches and Izzy had to nudge me when it was time for our class to go get in line to get our diplomas and assignment orders.

“I’m gonna die,” I whispered to her and she frowned at me.

“Hopefully not,” she said and I had to laugh.

“Okay, probably not,” I admitted. Still, I felt like a ball of nerves. Which I technically was.

It was over faster than I would have thought and when we sat back down I just kind of stared at my diploma and the traditionally sealed envelope that held my orders. Sam leaned over to me. “We’ll open those together later. The four of us.” And I nodded.

“Never thought this day would come,” Z said before she had to get up and when she came back her hands were shaking.

“You guys are not doing a very good job at making me not-nervous,” I told them.

“Ten more minutes,” Sam said.

She was wrong. It was another twenty until we could leave – obviously with the reminder to “report to the commanding officer of the starship and/or facility” named in our envelope tomorrow.

“Do you have food at your place?” Sam asked Z once we were back outside.

“Are you out again?”

“Yeah and the replicator is still broken,” I said.

Z rolled her eyes. “I can take a look at it later if you want me too.”

“That’d be great,” we said in unison.

“But let’s go eat first,” Sam said. “And open these damn envelopes.”

“It’d be so cool if we all got assigned to the same ship,” Izzy said and I glared at her.

 

 

Izzy’s and Z’s place was a bit further away than ours but hey, it had food.

“Yay, you have rice!” Sammy said happily after going through a few cabinets and waved the packet through the air.

“Assignments before food?” I asked. “I can’t eat anything yet, anyway.”

“Maybe that actually is the better order because otherwise you might puke,” Sam supplied, not extremely helpfully.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling at her sarcastically, which I had perfected over the years.

“Guys,” Z said. “Stop. Let’s find out where we’re gonna spend the rest of our lives.”

“There’s ways to like… get promoted. Or transferred, you know,” I said.

“Smartass,” Izzy grinned.

“Envelopes. Open. Now,” Z commanded.

“God, I hope you never become a captain,” Sammy said while clutching her envelope tightly.

“I actually think it’s a good idea,” I chimed in.

“I studied engineering, it’s not very likely,” Z said.

“But possible,” Izzy declared while fumbling with the corner of her envelope.

“On three,” I said.

“One.” Z.

“Two.” Sam.

“Three.” Izzy.

We opened our enevelopes. Well, Z and I did. Sam and Izzy basically ripped theirs apart.

“Okay, this is the moment of truth,” I said, more to myself than to the others, and carefully got the sheet of paper out. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure the others had to be able to hear it.

I unfolded mine. “Holy shit,” I breathed.

I looked at Sam. She grinned at me, her eyes wide. “I’m on the Enterprise,” she said.

“Oh my god,” Z and Izzy said at the same time. “Me too.”

“This is fucking impossible,” I said, already choking up. “What the fuck.” I rubbed at my eyes with my hand because I couldn’t hold back the tears.

“Which ship did you get?” Sam asked me, now looking concerned.

I took another look at my letter, just to be sure. This had to be a dream.

“I’m on the Enterprise too,” I whispered.

“Oh my god, fuck you!” she yelled, hugging me. “You had me scared there.”

“Who is responsible for those assignment orders, I want to kiss them,” Z said. Izzy laughed.

“We’re gonna go to space. Together,” I said, barely getting the words out because I was crying so hard.

“Fuck yeah, we are!”

**Author's Note:**

> So uh, happy birthday. I started writing this weeks ago but I'm really slow these days so it's not much.
> 
> If I was a better and/or faster writer this would be part of story where we don't all get assigned to the Enterprise and there's obviously lots of drama. Yup. But I'm not.


End file.
